Thailand May headline CPI falls 0.57% y/y, above forecast
BANGKOK, June 6 (Reuters) - Thailand's headline consumer price index (THCPI=ECI), opens new tab dropped 0.57% in May from a year earlier, after the previous month's annual decrease of 0.22%, the commerce ministry said on Friday.
The figure compared with a forecast fall of 0.80% in a Reuters poll, and was below the central bank's target range of 1% to 3%.
The core CPI (THCPIX=ECI), opens new tab, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was up 1.09% in May from a year earlier, compared with a forecast rise of 0.94%.
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
ECB should not 'overreact' if inflation edges below 2%, Vujcic says
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Daily Mail
12 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Trump ally proposes shocking Elon Musk-backed move to keep Congress accountable for inflation
One Republican senator is proposing a move that may cost himself and his colleagues their jobs if enacted. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) is proposing a constitutional amendment that would expel all members of Congress whenever inflation is over 3 percent. 'I'm drafting a constitutional amendment To oust every member of Congress Whenever inflation exceeds 3% It's better to disqualify politicians Than for an entire nation to suffer under the yoke of inflation Please let me know what you think And share if you like the idea,' Lee posted on X Wednesday evening. Lee's proposal gained praise from billionaire Elon Musk, who, borrowing a line from the Star Wars Mandalorians, reposted Lee's idea for the amendment with a comment of 'This is the way.' Lee's idea is one that has previously been articulated by another billionaire - Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffet. In a decades old video clip, shared by Lee, Buffet says 'I can end the deficit in five minutes. Just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection.' Lee is one of several Senate Republicans who doesn't support President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' of a spending package which is currently headed to the U.S. Senate after being passed by the House of Representatives back in May. Lee and Musk also joined forces earlier in the week to describe the bill as 'debt slavery' in a back and forth exchange on X. Well said, @elonmusk — Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) June 4, 2025 The U.S. inflation rate is currently 2.31 percent, but was at the 3 percent mark in January when Trump took office. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is another member of Trump's own party who opposes the substantial additions to the deficit included in the current Republican spending package. New additions to the the national debt are a non-starter for Paul, who has noted that he does want to see the 2017 tax cuts made permanent. Paul has also described the current $5 trillion in new debt as 'Biden spending levels.' 'This will be the largest increase in the debt ceiling ever in our history. We've never raised the debt ceiling without meeting the target. You can say it doesn't directly add to the debt but if you reach the ceiling you'll meet that. We won't discuss it for a year or two. I think it is a terrible idea to do this' Paul told Fox News. Appearing On CBS' Face the Nation last weekend, Paul told host Margaret Brennan that the math in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' 'doesn't really add up.' 'Well, the math doesn't really add up. One of the things this big and beautiful bill is, is it's a vehicle for increasing spending for the military and for the border. It's about $320 billion in new spending,' Paul said. In a nod to Musk and his budget slashing efforts across federal agencies, Paul compared the spending package with the funds anticipated to be saved by spending cuts pushed for by the Depart of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 'That's more than all the DOGE cuts that we found so far. So, the increase in spending put into this bill exceeds the DOGE cuts. When you look just at the border wall, they have $46.5 billion for the border wall,' Paul said on Face the Nation.
Reuters
16 hours ago
- Reuters
ECB should watch out for price hikes from U.S. tariffs, Schnabel says
DUBROVNIK, Croatia, June 7 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank has made "great progress" in taming inflation but it should watch out for fresh price hikes caused by U.S. tariffs, ECB policymaker Isabel Schnabel said on Saturday. The ECB cut interest rates on Thursday for the eighth time in the past year and signalled at least a policy pause next month as it waits for the growth and inflation outlook to become clearer. Schnabel, the most prominent voice in the hawkish ECB camp that favours higher interest rates, celebrated inflation returning to the bank's 2% target. "I think we've made great progress, and as you know, our most recent inflation number was even below 2%," Schnabel told a conference in Dubrovnik. "Of course, that was to a very large extent driven by energy, but we do see that also the more persistent components are coming down and that is that is very, very good news." Croatian central bank governor and fellow hawk Boris Vujcic said the ECB was "nearly done" cutting rates provided that inflation settles at 2% as expected. But with the ECB now projecting inflation at 1.6% next year, other ECB policymakers, and especially Portugal's central bank governor Mario Centeno, are even worrying it may slow down too much. Schnabel said the ECB should rather switch its focus on possible, new "shocks", such as a global trade war waged by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration against its trading partners. She cited academic research showing that a 1% increase in producer prices around the world would result in a 0.2% increase, on average, in domestic producer prices in major economies. "Even in the absence of retaliation, the tariffs would be expected to be inflationary and even more so if there is retaliation," she said. As an example, Schnabel cited China's decision to restrict its exports of rare earths, which is forcing automakers and their suppliers to shut down production of certain models. China said on Saturday it was willing to accelerate the examination and approval of rare earth exports to European Union firms. Schnabel also cited ECB research showing that the effect of so-called trade diversion -Chinese producers shut out of the United States flooding European markets with their goods - was small. "If the effects were not small, you can be sure that there would be counteracting measures coming from the European Commission," Schnabel said. She argued all this suggested trade tensions would affect all economies, limiting the scope for the ECB's and U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policies to diverge. "I expect this trade conflict to play out as a global shock that's working through both lower demand and supply," she said at the conference hosted by the Croatian central bank. "We can discuss which of the two effects on inflation is larger because that determines the net effect. But in any case, I would not expect a sustained decoupling (between the ECB and the Fed)," she said. Speaking on the same panel, Bank of England policymaker Megan Greene stuck a different tone, saying trade fragmentation should help bring down inflation in Britain, giving the BoE an "opportunity for monetary policy divergence going forward".
